


God Drowned (In Rivers, Wine, and Other Things)

by MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Heavy Drinking, I Don't Even Know, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Purple Prose, Requited Unrequited Love, Sad Ending, Slow Romance, Some Metaphor About Drowning, Too Many Metaphors, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9979766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes/pseuds/MostlyLandscapesSometimesNudes
Summary: “Citizen, are you unwell?”“Yes, but I am better now.”





	

For six straight days did Grantaire wake to throbbing head and nagging joints (from six straight nights of drinking) with his right cheek pressed against a counter, glass bottle still clutched. On the seventh day, the pubs were closed, and he awoke amidst the cobbles of the street, wearing a slick coat of his own filth and reeking of discarded urine. It was an acceptable change of pace; his right cheek required a day of recovery from the semi-permanent imprint of wood grain that developed there.

This pattern had persisted for several months. Expulsion from university (for drunken misconduct, no less) had left him free to be as miserable as he pleased. When not spouting grievances from chapped lips and raw throat, he boxed on bets to earn his liquor. Losses were cut with beggary and the ultimate placation of still more liquor.

The mistress of the house had seen quite enough, and on the seventh day of the fourth week at La Prune Folle (or whatever his dreadful haunt of that month was called), she bid him a very pointed _adieu_. It was time to move on anyway, Grantaire supposed.

Confused by Parisian geography, he clinked and clattered from Rue this to Avenue that until he came upon a place that would still dignify to serve him, settling into a new chair and an old routine.

The Café Musain had to be the absolute worst hellhole in all of Paris, Grantaire concluded as he swung an arm over his aching ears. Between the pigswill liquor and hideous barmaids, there was much left to be desired, not to mention the overwhelming racket of political discourse emanating from the back room. By the time the clatter of chairs signified that dissentious meeting adjourned, Grantaire had laid his head on the table, praying the drowsy inertia of alcohol would, at last, drown him into a more eternal sleep.

“Citizen, are you unwell?”

With aching eyes did he raise his head and so was greeted by a golden halo, marked with sapphires, addressing him in a resonant tenor. He was absolutely shaken with the vision and gasped with all the force of a drowned man breaking surface.

“Yes, but I am better now.”

The angel scowled and turned away, while the merry band of onlookers erupted in boisterous laughter at the expense of their leader. As the party made their exit, Grantaire could not help but follow that bright star who’d spoke to him.

He decided right then that the Musain was quite _lovely_ , actually, and he would make a point to stay.

Each night he did return, and each night closer towards that elusive back room did he creep. His careful observations of Enjolras (or so he learned his angel’s name from the congregation’s joyous shouts) were not enough to slake his thirst. So his pursuit, once sat among them, escalated to insult.

Every breath he drew to lob a cry of dissention in the dear leader’s direction only deepened his lungs and raised him further from the sea of his sorrows. Affection had not cured his apathy, but life tasted only half as foul when he drank in equal parts bad brandy and Apollo’s preaching.

He had not known that he was ever drowning until then.

With exasperation did Enjolras make response. With fury did he debate until his cheeks ran red. With dire passions did he make a mission of Pylades’ conversion. And with lofty pity did he keep company of the drunk.

“Why do you keep that man about , dear leader?”

Truly, Enjolras did not know. Nor did he have an answer to why, on the seventh day, when the Musain was closed, he picked _that man_ up from the filthy Rue des Gres and lent him his unsullied bed.

“Do you love, great Orestes? Or only _Patria_?”

“You’re drunk, Grantaire. Please rest.”

“Oh, but I am wise this way. _In vino veritas_ , my friend.”

And Apollo’s cheeks ran red for quite another reason.

Amidst the flurry of rebellion and pamphlets, Enjolras began to reason that discord was a welcome mate. If not for voiced dissent, the creaking cogs of government would go un-oiled. This, truly, was democracy. Grantaire, that drunken fool, had made his presence fit.

_That is why I keep him about._

But even in the darkest din of revolution by candlelight, Enjolras could not meet that man’s eyes without the sensation of swelling water and waves, rolling one after the other, on his conscience.

_And yet do I still drown._

A full year later, when Grantaire made his final interruption and held his hand aloft did Enjolras understand and too, at last, begin to breathe.

It took eight bullets and a thunderclap to cut that breath asunder.

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
